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Dani Clayton is running.
She knows that some things are inevitable. Or all things, she supposes. Everything binds together to create one fate. One fate, one story, one ending.
Dani knows this, even as she feels herself sink into the too-soft leather of the armchair she chose in a pinch and blinks towards the meters-high window, watches the waves slam insistently against the rails below.
Twist.
Crash.
Twist.
I ran away from home.
Crash.
I ran away from home and boarded the closest ferry.
Twist.
I ran away from home and boarded the closest ferry with nothing but a handbag and a credit card.
Crash.
I ran away from home and boarded the closest ferry with nothing but a handbag and a credit card and threw my engagement ring into these waters about twelve minutes ago.
Twist.
I’m alone.
Crash.
Dani vaguely registers her movement as she stands and the restaurants and express stores blur into colour in the corners of her eyes. She somewhat feels her palms slam into a bright yellow door, although the sign goes unnoticed as she crashes blindly through, tears obscuring her vision enough that she trips and falls to the pale blue tiles below.
Jamie Taylor is hiding.
Hiding — as in, pressing the pads of her fingers in to her own knees as she perches on a closed toilet in the bathroom of a ferry she didn’t bother to check the destination of.
She can’t close her eyes. Doesn’t want to, mainly. Knows exactly what she will see if she does. Rebecca, in the lake. Rebecca, dead.
Now she’s thinking about it.
So Jamie counts. One, two, three, four, until she reaches ten, and she breathes, really breathes.
Jamie has just evened out the relentless waves of her heart when she hears the door to the bathroom slam open and bang directly into the wall behind it. That’s going to leave a dent is all she can think before she’s slipping out from behind the door of her own stall.
And thank God she does, because there’s a woman — pretty, Jamie immediately scolds herself for thinking — sobbing and choking on her own breaths and falling to the floor in front of her.
“Do... Can I help you up?”
“No, please,” the woman gasps, and it’s the most shattering thing Jamie has ever heard in her life, “Please don’t touch me.”
“Easy, alright. Do you want me to call someone?”
The woman presses her right hand to her face. Seems to be thinking.
Jamie knows.
“Ah. No one to call?”
“Fuck, alright, no need to put it like that.”
It’s not said with much venom, Jamie realises. More... hopelessness.
She’s just about to mumble a hasty apology anyway when the woman practically scrambles to her feet and spins shakily on her heels before falling towards one of the sinks. All she can do is thank the Lord the bathroom is empty before she catches on to a choked, raw, sob.
“Jesus, fuck. Are you alright?”
Through the relentlessly pouring tears, the woman whispers:
“I can’t remember the last time someone asked me that.”
Jamie’s unsure where to go with this. What to do with this woman — pretty, too pretty for her own good, and this time she lets herself think it — grabbing at the sink like her life depends on it, her knuckles practically bursting through her skin. She reaches out a tentative hand, takes it back halfway to the woman’s shoulder when she flinches away. Chooses to ignore the flash of something — disappointment? — she sees cross her face in the mirror.
“Alright, well, I’m asking you now.”
“No.”
At least she’s honest.
Before Jamie can tentatively offer a shoulder and drift back to her own stall, the woman opens her mouth again.
“My name is Dani.”
Dani waits.
Jamie waits.
“Is... is there something you want to say?” Jamie can’t help but ask it, because she already knows there is. It’s written all over Dani’s face — in the fear she can see shimmering in her eyes, in the still shaky breaths she’s filtering through her teeth.
“Kiss me.”
“What?” Jamie splutters. Dani, to her credit, doesn’t even blink.
“Kiss me. Now. Please.”
“You don’t even know my name.”
“Tell me, then?”
Jamie fiddles with her own hands. Presses a thumb to each finger. You could do it, she thinks. You could kiss her. She asked, after all. She thinks it because she wants to. She wants to kiss this pretty blonde woman with ocean eyes who slammed and sobbed her way into Jamie’s life via a ferry bathroom door about six minutes ago.
Dani interrupts her thoughts.
“In the stall?”
“What?”
It’s all Jamie can say.
All Jamie can say, besides “Dani, I will, but first can you just tell me wh—“ before careful hands are cupping her face and soft lips are on hers. And oh, Dani’s lips are soft, and warm and pliant under Jamie’s own, and she doesn’t even realise she’s lifting her own hands to Dani’s cheeks until skin meets skin.
Dani pulls away too soon.
There is a startled look in her eyes, the same deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression Jamie had seen on Dani’s face when she’d first stumbled to the ground before her.
“I-I’m so sorry, I don’t know what came over me—“
“Hey, hey it’s alright—“
“Fuck, I’m so sorry, I don’t even know your name—“
“Jamie. My name’s Jamie.”
Dani’s expression clears in an instant save for a tiny, barely noticeable twist in her lips. A smile, one she seems to be trying her level best to hold back.
“Jamie,” Dani whispers, and Jamie is sure no one has ever said her name with such care, such reverence.
“Dani,” Jamie mutters, and they’re kissing again. Slower, this time, with more intent. Jamie can feel Dani sigh into the kiss — can feel Dani’s hands come around to rest on her shoulder blades. She doesn’t want to stop feeling.
This time, when they pull apart, they rest their foreheads together. Jamie doesn’t want to ruin the bubble they’ve made for themselves, this quiet moment of bliss, but she has to ask.
“What’s wrong? What was wrong? Before?”
For a moment, Dani doesn’t move besides to close her eyes, forehead still pressing gently to Jamie’s.
“I ran away.”
Dani keeps her eyes closed as she speaks.
“I was... engaged. To a man. We were supposed to get married in sixty-two days.” If Jamie is bothered by any of Dani’s words, she does not let it show on her face.
“We were supposed to get married. And we were planning it. And then it was too much. So I... I ran away, and got on a ferry to go anywhere else.”
“You’re not wearing a ring,” Jamie observes quietly. She can feel the puff of air hit her lips as Dani chuckles humourlessly.
“I threw it off one of the balconies.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. I’m... I’m done with that. That’s not who I am.”
“Is this who you are then? Someone who kisses strange women in ferry bathrooms?”
“Hey! You kissed me too!”
They pull apart, Dani’s hands remaining on Jamie’s back.
“I did.”
Dani cocks her head. She doesn’t seem to hesitate in asking “Why?”, and Jamie wills her heart rate to calm down. She’s curious, is Dani. Curious and unashamed, and Jamie feels like she’s known her since the beginning of time.
“Because you’re pretty and you asked me to.”
Dani breaks into a wide grin.
“You think I’m pretty?”
“Oh fucking hell, of course I do,” Jamie grins in return. “You’re gorgeous. Lovely sunny hair. Amazing eyes. Could drown in them if I wanted to.”
Something crosses Dani’s eyes, then. Something Jamie recognises, but can’t put a name to to save her life. Dani has that expression, again, that says she wants to tell her something weighty.
Instead: “How come no one’s come in? This ferry is packed.”
“Did you not, ah, see the sign? Bathroom’s out of order. Hence why I was camping out here.”
Jamie can’t help but give a small laugh when Dani’s eyes widen.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry. Are... were you alright?”
“Wasn’t. Had something happen to a friend. I... Well, suppose I’m a runaway too.”
This time, Jamie can see exactly what dances in Dani’s eyes. She’s seen it in the mirror. Dani can feel it too. Recognition, and — this inevitability, this quickly accepted knowledge of fate.
“What was that you said about my eyes?” Dani is leaning in once again.
“I could drown in them.”
“Then drown in them, Jamie. Please.”
And so — as their lips meet, as Dani backs her slowly, gently, against the wall, as Dani whispers “This alright?” before reaching for the top button of Jamie’s shirt — drown Jamie does.